B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix, 53, was born in Ottawa and grew up on the west side of Vancouver where his parents had a Kerrisdale insurance agency. He studied political science at UBC where he met poet Renee Saklikar, whom he would marry. Dix, who lived in France and is bilingual, was executive director of Canadian Parents for French, a non-profit that advocates more French immersion programs.

He was former premier Glen Clark’s chief of staff from 1996 to 1999, a position from which he was dismissed for backdating a memo to protect Clark from conflict of interest charges. Dix served as leader of the opposition starting in 2011 and stepping down after the NDP lost to the Liberals in the 2013 election.

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The budget update capital plan contains a long list of hospital projects going out as far as 2026. There’s no funding committed to the new St. Paul’s hospital redevelopment even though it was supposedly going to open by the year 2022 or 2023. Is the new hospital still viable or severely stalled? When will government commit its first chunk of money to the project?

Providence Health Care is an organization that really cares about its mission. Everybody has a mission, but Providence really talks about its mission and vision, reminding itself that it's a place that started out by paying attention to marginalized populations. That truly is a mantle we all wear.”